There is a particular kind of ambition that defines the most discerning superyacht owners: not the desire to choose from what already exists, but to conceive something entirely their own. Every detail, every proportion, every moment spent aboard should reflect a singular vision. ISA Yachts, the superyacht brand within the Palumbo Superyachts group, has announced a new platform designed precisely with that owner in mind.
Unveiled in Ancona on 30 July 2026, the ISA Large Yacht Collection is a dedicated design and construction platform for superyachts measuring between 80 and 90 metres. It is a considered evolution in the shipyard’s approach to building at the very highest level, one that places the owner’s imagination at the centre of the creative process, supported by a technical foundation of considerable proven depth.
A Platform Built On Proven Expertise
The ISA Large Yacht Collection does not emerge from ambition alone. It is the culmination of hard-won experience at the large-yacht end of the market, where the margins for error are vanishingly small and the expectations of those commissioning the vessels are correspondingly vast.
Palumbo Superyachts is already engaged in the construction of three significant large ISA yachts: the ISA Custom 80, the ISA Gran Turismo 80, and the ISA Gran Turismo 100. These projects, each demanding in their own right, have sharpened the shipyard’s engineering capabilities and deepened its understanding of what it takes to deliver a vessel of this scale with precision and flair. That body of expertise is further enriched by the construction of the Columbus Classic 80-metre motor yacht M/Y Dragon, a project that brought its own lessons in design integration, structural complexity, and the refinement of large-scale onboard living.
Together, these builds constitute the intellectual and technical bedrock upon which the ISA Large Yacht Collection has been constructed. The result is a platform that offers something genuinely rare in the superyacht world: the freedom of full customisation, underpinned by the confidence of a shipyard that has already navigated the challenges of building at this scale. This pursuit of uncompromising design at sea is something the Heesen Project Ananda 72m superyacht has similarly demonstrated, setting new benchmarks for what a vessel built around a singular vision can achieve.
The Philosophy Behind The Collection
At the heart of the ISA Large Yacht Collection lies a conviction about what luxury truly means in the context of superyacht ownership today. For ISA Yachts, the answer is unambiguous: true luxury is not about selecting from a catalogue of finished concepts. It is about having the tools, the expertise, and the creative partnership to build something that does not yet exist.
This philosophy finds its clearest expression in the words of Giuseppe Palumbo, Sole Director of Palumbo Superyachts, who articulates the purpose of the new collection with characteristic directness.
“Every owner envisions their yacht differently. Our task is to turn that vision into reality, without compromise. The ISA Large Yacht Collection was created with precisely this objective: to offer the freedom to develop a fully customised project, supported by the strength of a technical platform shaped by the experience gained in building our large yachts. We believe that true luxury today lies in creating a yacht unlike any other, built around those who will experience it.”
The statement is instructive. It speaks to a client who is not interested in the approximate, in a vessel that comes close to their vision but ultimately belongs to a template conceived by someone else. The ISA Large Yacht Collection is positioned as the antidote to that compromise: a framework sophisticated enough to guide the process, yet open enough to accommodate a genuinely individual outcome.
Introducing The ISA Amarcord 82: The First Project
The inaugural vessel of the ISA Large Yacht Collection, and the project that most immediately demonstrates the platform’s creative potential, is the ISA Amarcord 82. Designed by Nuvolari Lenard, one of the most respected names in yacht design and a studio long associated with the elegance and craft of Made in Italy, the Amarcord 82 is a vessel conceived from the outset as a statement of contemporary superyacht design.
The exterior design achieves something notoriously difficult: sinuous and sporty without sacrificing refinement, bold in its proportions yet precise in its detail. The silhouette is defined by expansive glazed surfaces and an array of hull openings. Each element serves a dual purpose: aesthetically compelling whilst simultaneously establishing what the design team describes as a continuous dialogue between the interiors and the sea. This relationship with the marine environment is not incidental. It is the organising principle around which the entire design has been developed.
Natural light is treated almost as a material in its own right. Every space aboard the Amarcord 82 has been conceived to maximise the presence of daylight, dissolving the boundary between inside and outside and reinforcing the sensation of living in genuine, unmediated contact with the water.
Spaces That Redefine Life At Sea
The design of the Amarcord 82 rewards closer examination, particularly in the way it handles the stern and the beach club area. These spaces have become increasingly important to how owners and their guests actually experience life aboard a large yacht.
At the stern, the hull opens to reveal a spectacular platform looking directly out to sea. This platform connects to the beach club below and is further extended by two generously proportioned fold-down balconies, creating an outdoor living environment of considerable scale and atmosphere. The transition from the interior to the water’s edge feels intuitive and unhurried. That is the mark of a design thought through at the level of lived experience rather than merely visual impact.
Above the beach club, the main-deck cockpit is dominated by a striking swimming pool with a glass bottom, an architectural gesture that achieves both the spectacular and the practical. Natural light filters down through the pool floor into the beach club below, creating an exchange of transparency and illumination that shifts with the light conditions throughout the day. It is the kind of detail that reveals the thinking behind the Nuvolari Lenard approach: every element is considered both as an object in itself and in relation to the spaces and experiences around it.
The accommodation layout reflects a similar depth of consideration. Twelve guests can be accommodated across five VIP cabins, each designed to offer the privacy and comfort expected at this level of superyacht specification. The owner’s suite, however, occupies a category of its own: a private residence spanning more than 100 square metres, conceived not as a cabin scaled up but as a genuine apartment at sea, with proportions and appointments appropriate to extended periods of occupancy.
Upper Decks As Destinations
The upper decks of the Amarcord 82 are designed as destinations in their own right. Panoramic lounge areas, swimming pools, spaces for al fresco dining, and numerous convivial zones are woven throughout the upper levels of the vessel, each maintaining the architectural language that runs through the entire design.
What distinguishes these spaces from comparable offerings elsewhere in the market is the consistency of the relationship maintained between the built environment and the natural one. The architecture never turns its back on the sea. The glazing, the openings, the orientation of the key living spaces, all of these decisions reinforce the sense that aboard the Amarcord 82, the ocean is not merely a backdrop but an active presence in the daily rhythm of life on board.
This commitment to liveability permeates the entire design. The Amarcord 82 is not a vessel conceived for the occasional grand occasion. It is a yacht built for extended voyaging, where comfort, ease, and the quality of everyday experience are as important as the dramatic set-pieces of life at anchor in a celebrated bay.
The Future Of Full Custom At Large Scale
The launch of the ISA Large Yacht Collection signals something broader than a new product announcement. It is ISA Yachts’ articulation of where it believes the large superyacht market is heading, and more precisely, what the most demanding owners at this level of the industry are now seeking.
The conventional distinction between semi-custom and full-custom has always been a negotiation between the owner’s ambitions and the shipyard’s capacity to realise them without abandoning the technical rigour that makes a vessel of this size safe and seaworthy. The ISA Large Yacht Collection is ISA Yachts’ response to that negotiation: a platform capable of absorbing a genuinely individual vision and translating it into a seagoing reality, without the compromises that have historically attended large-scale custom building.
For a shipyard already constructing a 100-metre superyacht destined to become its new flagship, the ambition is clear. ISA Yachts is operating at the frontier of what is possible in large yacht construction, and the ISA Large Yacht Collection is the framework through which the next generation of owners will access that capability. The broader world of Sanlorenzo’s forty years of design philosophy offers a compelling parallel, demonstrating how a shipyard’s accumulated heritage can become its most powerful creative asset.
A Collection Rooted In Italian Excellence
Throughout the development of the ISA Large Yacht Collection, and most visibly in the Amarcord 82, the Italian identity of ISA Yachts is never far from the surface. This is not a matter of heritage deployed as marketing shorthand, but of a genuine approach to craft, design, and the relationship between form and function that has long distinguished Italian shipbuilding at the highest level.
The choice of Nuvolari Lenard for the inaugural project is emblematic of this commitment. The studio brings to the Amarcord 82 not only its considerable technical expertise and design intelligence but also a sensibility rooted in the best traditions of Italian elegance: an understanding that beauty in a superyacht is not achieved through decoration but through proportion, material quality, and the coherence of the overall concept.
The result is a vessel that wears its sophistication lightly. Confident rather than ostentatious, refined rather than restrained. It is, in the truest sense, a yacht conceived for owners who have moved beyond the need to impress and arrived at the more demanding ambition of expressing something genuinely personal.
A New Chapter For ISA Yachts
The ISA Large Yacht Collection arrives at a considered moment for ISA Yachts and for the wider Palumbo Superyachts group. With four brands, ISA Yachts, Columbus, Mondomarine, and Extra, operating under the group’s umbrella, and with an active construction programme spanning multiple vessel types and sizes, the organisation has assembled the scale and diversity of expertise to support the most complex and ambitious client briefs at the large-yacht end of the market. Coverage of the sector in leading industry publications such as SuperYacht Times continues to highlight how owner expectations at this scale are evolving rapidly.
For ISA Yachts specifically, the new collection consolidates a position that has been built steadily and deliberately over years of construction at the 80-to-100-metre level. It is not a pivot in strategy, but a deepening of it: a commitment to the idea that the shipyard’s greatest contribution to the superyacht world lies not in what it has already built, but in what it has yet to create.
The ISA Amarcord 82 is the first expression of that commitment. It will not be the last.
